A heartwarming song to Sofia

August 15th dawns cloudless. It's a holiday in Sofia, a day to wake up early, add a cup of coffee to your usual breakfast, and go for a walk. There's hardly any traffic. And pedestrians are pacing leisurely. Smartly dressed, alone, in pairs, with their whole families, they seem drawn by a gravitational pull that makes them converge on the various churches.

The one closest to me is St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. With its domes and arched galleries, it might seem like something out of Minas Tirith, if it weren't for the fact that The Lord of the Rings film was shot a century later. This temple was built as a monument to celebrate the country's liberation from the Ottoman yoke. Italian marble, Brazilian onyx, Indian alabaster, doors forged in Vienna, Venetian mosaics... And yet, what is most impressive is the choir that accompanies the service. The faithful stand in attendance in an open space, without pews or benches, and all the lamps and candles, all the gilding, seem arranged to give even more brilliance to the voices.

And this is a special day: the dormition of the Virgin Mary is celebrated.

Just a stone's throw away, Hagia Sophia has a much more austere exterior, although its history is more substantial. It dates back to a first basilica in the 4th century that stood where the Romans had their theater. Ten centuries later, it became a bishop's seat, and then the Ottomans converted it into a mosque. Mosaics, frescoes, and other vestiges bear witness to its ups and downs.

Much more reserved is St. Paraskeva, which has been elevated at a confluence of steps at different levels. And nearby, St. Nedelya Cathedral has also seen all kinds of changes, losing all traces of the original 10th-century building.

Finally, I stop before St. Nicholas. Built as an adjoining church to the Russian Embassy, it draws attention with its bulbous, gold-covered domes, clearly inspired by Moscow. And, as I ascend the steps, I think perhaps they've turned up the music too loud. A screen of worshippers obscures the main nave from me. I search for the speakers. But when I manage to sneak inside, I realize no, the voices are live and they are few in number, barely one per section: a soprano, a contralto, a tenor. The experience is accompanied by incense, candles, the opening of curtains at the doors of the iconostasis, and the clang of ladles. And then the head priest emerges from the iconostasis. Rather than emerge, you could say he bursts in, to give it more force, with his richly embroidered stole and chasuble and a poise that would make the Titanic look like a small boat.

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And the moment arrives when the priest takes up his voice, and what emerges from his heart transcends human prodigy. His song is that of Boris Gudonov. It shakes and trembles and penetrates until it makes the deepest roots of the earth tremble. This is how I imagine a god who, with his word, prepares to create the universe.

I leave the church moved, and no wonder. And I end the tour where I started. At St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the service continues. The choir soars to heaven. And it must be the music, it must be the walk, that has whetted my appetite, and I think of a good salad and those eggplants. I don't know how they cook them, but I can assure you I've never tasted better ones.